Unwanted first for Turkmenistan

A wrestler from Turkmenistan became the first doping case at the Asian Games and has been disqualified, the Olympic Council of Asia said on Friday.

Rustem Nazarov tested positive for the banned substance furosemide, a masking agent, in a pre-tournament urine test last week, the OCA said.

Nazarov “has been disqualified from the 18th Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games 2018... and his results during the competition held on the 19th August annulled”, a statement said.

The athlete, 24, had competed in the men’s 57kg freestyle event and was defeated in his first match by India’s Sandeep Tomar.

Six athletes tested positive at the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon including South Korean swimmer Park Taehwan, who was stripped of his medals.

Other athletes from Turkmenistan, a Central Asian country, have failed doping tests at major sporting events in recent years.

Weightlifter Umurbek Bazarbayev failed a drugs test at a world championship event in the United States in 2015, and sprinter Yelena Ryabova tested positive at the 2013 world athletics championships in Moscow.

Turkmenistan’s sports chiefs have been under pressure to deliver success, following a public dressing-down from the country’s president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, after the nation’s athletes came home empty-handed from the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.